


Counterbalance

by straightforwardly



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-12 00:12:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11725473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightforwardly/pseuds/straightforwardly
Summary: There's one place Tom always visits when he returns to the orphanage for the summer.





	Counterbalance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/gifts).



> This is told from Tom's perspective, with all the warnings that might imply. 
> 
> A million thanks to Morbane both for betaing this and for being wonderfully patient as I tried to beat this story into shape. All remaining errors and problems are wholly mine.

Dark, cramped, squeezed into a half-forgotten side-street — the bookshop looked utterly insignificant, and nothing like a place that would draw in someone like Tom Riddle. Not a one of his thinking classmates would ever believe him to frequent such a place, even assuming they got past it being a _Muggle_ establishment in the first place.

But, then again, not a one of them knew what Tom knew.

The bell on the door chimed as Tom entered. The day outside was foggy and dreary, which only served to deepen the shadows inside the shop. The air smelled of old books and stale dust, and the light flickered weakly, making it seem almost darker than it would have been with no light at all. Tom allowed his eyes to adjust, and looked to the counter.

Pevensie had looked up at the sound of the bell; now, he set down the book he had been reading, his long fingers splaying over the cover. He smiled. Not the fake, affable smile he gave other customers, but a true, genuine smile that belonged only to Tom himself. He felt a curl of satisfaction, seeing it now.

“Riddle,” Pevensie greeted. “Back for the summer hols?” Inane words, but his eyes flickered with deeper emotion.

“As you can see.” Tom stepped forward, neatly side-stepping a stack of books that had overflowed from the neighbouring shelf. “I just thought I’d stop by,” he continued. “See if there was anything you… needed.”

Pevensie glanced over his shoulder to the cracked door behind him; more from habit, Tom thought, then any real concern that the doddering old fool who actually owned the shop would choose that moment to come down from his apartment. In the past two summers since Tom had come across the shop, he’d only seen the owner once, and that only in passing. How the man managed when Pevensie was down at school, Tom couldn’t fathom.

“As business-like as usual,” Pevensie finally said, sounding faintly admiring, though it was mixed with something else Tom couldn’t quite place. His fingers tapped against the cover of his book. “I suppose Lu was saying that she’d awfully like to bake a cake, if only she had enough sugar for it… And there’s the usual things, of course.”

In the beginning, when they’d first started this arrangement, Pevensie had always ended his requests with, _if you can manage_. He never did anymore; he had learned that Tom could always _manage_.

Of all the things Tom hated about the Muggle world, rationing was one of the worst. To go from the gloriously resplendent feasts at Hogwarts to the carefully parceled out portions at the orphanage was… degrading. Yet since he’d met Pevensie, he found he could appreciate the opportunities it gave him, even if he could not forgive it the humiliations.

Pevensie added, “How’s that diary working out for you, by the way?”

“Quite well, thank you,” said Tom coolly, even as his pulse quickened. He thought, _does he know_?

He dismissed the thought almost immediately. It was impossible. He’d given no hint of his plans to anyone; even Slughorn, the pathetic, short-sighted fool, knew little more than the name of the thing Tom had sought to create — the thing that would give him immortality. It’d been Tom alone who had taken that name and studied further, and he alone who had learned the spells and ritual necessary.

And what had truly happened at Hogwarts over the last few weeks — the soothing clarity of the basilisk’s hiss, the blank surprise on that stupid girl’s face, the new weight the diary had seemed to hold, after — that too, only he knew.

No, Pevensie couldn’t know. Even with all his secrets, the hidden sources of knowledge he kept carefully from Tom’s reach — even with all of that, Tom couldn’t believe that he’d managed to lay his plans bare. The question had been only a pleasantry, one of those moments where Pevensie played along with convention. He had been the one to give Tom the diary, after all, on their final day together the previous summer. As payment, not as a gift, but it was not unnatural of him to inquire after it. 

Assured again, Tom returned to the game. He gave Pevensie a slow, promise-filled smile. “Quite well,” he repeated, deliberately. “But that wasn’t the sort of payment I was looking for today.”

Pevensie said nothing, but his eyes darkened with understanding, and more. Slowly, he stepped out from behind the counter, and walked past Tom to the shop’s front window, flipping over the sign from open to closed.

“The back room?” he asked, still in that light, conversant tone.

Tom gave a careless shrug. “It’ll do.”

The storage room was even more cramped than the shop itself, crammed with towering boxes and dilapidated shelves. Tom would have preferred another place, one which suited his and Pevensie’s stature better, but there were no such places in Muggle London. The storage room served its purpose.

Pevensie closed the door behind them, turning the key. There was no electric lighting, only some bits of daylight filtering through a small, murky window set high in the wall. Pevensie’s face, his form, was half-swallowed by shadows. It suited him, like it suited Tom, like it suited all who carried as many secrets as they did.

Quick as a snake, Tom crushed Pevensie against the wall, his mouth seeking his. Pevensie responded hungrily, his hands sliding up under Tom’s shirt, his hands cool against the warm skin of his back.

One day, he’d know Pevensie’s secrets too. Delve into the reaches of his mind just as he explored the contours of his body now, gobble up what unknown knowledge he held within him just as he devoured his mouth.

Their touches grew more frenzied, more heated. Tom unbuttoned Pevensie’s trousers, listening to Pevensie’s helpless groan as he pushed the cloth aside and took his cock into his hand. Tom swallowed it all down: the sound of Pevensie’s shuddering gasps, the feel of his cock, hot and hard and silky to the touch, the familiar, practiced strokes that he knew would bring Pevensie to the brink.

Later, when they’d both collapsed against the wall together, utterly spent, Tom thought back to the diary, to that split-second where he’d honestly thought Pevensie might have known what he’d done. How disgustingly foolish. 

Still, Pevensie _was_ no common Muggle. Of that much, Tom was convinced. He was cleverer than any of the Muggles in the orphanage, cleverer than any one of Tom’s classmates and most of his teachers too. He was nothing like the masses of filth that swarmed London’s streets. He was like Tom: different. Special. True, he never reacted to Tom’s sly references to the Wizarding World, but that proved nothing. After all, was it not only a little more than a handful of years before when Tom himself would have shown the same blank face?

No, there was something different about Pevensie. Magical. Of that, Tom was certain, even if Pevensie danced around his every subtle inquiry. How many times had Pevensie made a casual reference to names or magical creatures Tom had never heard of, nor could find in any book? Or had hinted at deeper knowledge of those which Tom knew to exist? They’d all been casual, thoughtless mentions, but Tom had recognized the ring of experience behind them, of familiarity. The things he’d said of giants alone, creatures which Tom had previously dismissed as stupid, useless beasts, had sent enchanting possibilities spiraling in his mind.

When he’d tried to press for more, however, Pevensie had attempted to pass them off as references to childhood stories. He’d done it well: it’d sounded both plausible and truthful. But Tom himself was adept at lying, and he’d recognized the carefully crafted nature of Pevensie’s words, how deliberately he’d constructed that casual air of truth.

Then, too, there was that strange air he sometimes had, those moments when he’d shift from the outward appearance of a common schoolboy to something— more.

But he guarded his knowledge well; Tom had to be careful when dealing with him. Learning Slughorn’s knowledge of horcruxes was child’s play next to coaxing out Pevensie’s secrets. Press too hard and at the wrong moment, and Pevensie would only retreat back into his polite, smiling facade while Tom gained nothing. It was frustrating, but it was also exhilarating: never had he had such a challenge as Pevensie. Never had he met someone so well-matched to him, either.

He’d still win in the end. Tom smiled at the thought, his fingers curling possessively in Pevensie’s hair. Pevensie was talented, but he was better; he’d win in the end, and when he did, Pevensie would lay all that he knew bare before him. Perhaps he wouldn’t even need to discard Pevensie, after. There was something thrilling about the idea of keeping him, of having someone so close to his own level near him. He’d just need to play it right, and make sure Pevensie learned his place. Some subtlety would be needed, but he could do it. 

He’d win, and when he did, everything would be his.


End file.
